Banner art for event

Ten Evenings

Esi Edugyan

BUY TICKETS

Ten Evenings is presented by Bank of America

“Folks think a lifetime is a thing stretched out over years. It ain’t. It can happen quick as a match in a dark room.”

ESI EDUGYAN, HALF-BLOOD BLUES

Prize-winning novelist Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black is an epic adventure about a boy who rises from the ashes of slavery to become a man of the world. Named a 10 Best Books of 2018 by the New York Times, this “lush, exhilarating travelogue reminiscent of Jules Verne” (New Yorker) asks, what is true freedom?

George Washington Black, or “Wash,” an eleven-year-old field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is terrified to be chosen by his master’s brother as his manservant. To his surprise, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is initiated into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky, where even a boy born in chains may embrace a life of dignity and meaning–and where two people, separated by an impossible divide, can begin to see each other as human. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash’s head, Christopher and Wash must abandon everything.

Esi Edugyan is the author of the novels The Second Life of Samuel Tyne and Half-Blood Blues, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. She won the Giller Prize a second time for Washington Black, which was also a finalist for the Man Booker prize and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia, with her husband and two children.

Washington Black is as harrowing a portrayal of slavery as Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, but it also becomes a globe-trotting, page-turning adventure story. A historical epic with much to say about the present-day world.”

THE GUARDIAN

Book Signing

Join us in the Music Hall Foyer after the lecture to get your book signed or personalized. Books will be available for sale at the event from White Whale Bookstore.

Sponsored by UPMC

With additional support from Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh, Point Park University, and Aurora Reading Club

Promotional Partner
United Black Book Clubs of Pittsburgh

Washing Black book cover

WHEN

Monday, March 9, 2020 at 7:30 p.m.

TICKETS

$15-35
$10 tickets are available for students by using the promo code LS20STUDENT.
BUY TICKETS

WHERE

Carnegie Music Hall
4400 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, 15213

SHARE THIS EVENT

Upcoming Lectures

Hernan Diaz

APR 8

Ed Yong

APR 29

Jesmyn Ward

MAY 13

Anna Monardo

MAY 23